upon it:  they were eighteen pounders; they were twenty-fours; they were thirty-sixes.  Nobody could tell what they were there for.  They were aimed at Fort Sumter, but would not carry half way to it.  They could hit Fort Pinckney, but that was not desirable.  The policeman could not explain; neither could the idlers; neither can I. At last it got reported about the city that they were to sink any boats which might come down the river to reinforce Anderson; though how the boats were to get into the river, whether by railroad from Washington, or by balloon from the Free States, nobody even pretended to guess.  Standing on this side of the Ashley, and looking across it, you naturally see the other side.  The long line of nearly dead level, with its stretches of thin pine-forest and its occasional glares of open sand, gives you an idea of nearly the whole country about Charleston, except that in general you ought to add to the picture a number of noble evergreen oaks bearded with pendent, weird Spanish moss, and occasional green spikes of the tropical-looking Spanish bayonet.  Of palmettos there are none that I know of in this immediate region, save the hundred or more on Sullivan’s Island and the one or two exotics in the streets of Charleston.  In the middle of the Ashley, which is here more than a quarter of a mile wide, lies anchored a topsail schooner, the nursery of the South Carolina navy.  I never saw it sail anywhere; but then my opportunities of observation were limited.  Quite a number of boys are on board of it, studying maritime matters; and I can bear witness that they are sufficiently advanced to row themselves ashore.  Possibly they are moored thus far up the stream to guard them from sea-sickness, which might be discouraging to young sailors.  However, I ought not to talk on this subject, for I am the merest civilian and land-lubber.

My first conversation in Charleston on Secession was with an estimable friend, Northern-born, but drawing breath of Southern air ever since he attained the age of manhood.  After the first salutation, he sat down, his hands on his knees, gazing on the floor, and shaking his head soberly, if not sadly.

“You have found us in a pretty fix,—­in a pretty fix!”

“But what are you going to do?  Are you really going out?  You are not a politician, and will tell me the honest facts.”

“Yes, we are going out,’—­there is no doubt of it, I have not been a seceder,—­I have even been called one of the disaffected; but I am obliged to admit that secession is the will of the community.  Perhaps you at the North don’t believe that we are honest in our professions and actions.  We are so.  The Carolinians really mean to go out of the Union, and don’t mean to come back.  They say that they are out, and they believe it.  And now, what are you going to do with us?  What is the feeling at the North?”

“The Union must and shall be preserved, at all hazards.  That famous declaration expresses the present Northern popular sentiment.  When I left, people were growing martial; they were joining military companies; they wanted to fight; they were angry.”